Finally! Finally! The house is ours again! 🙂 Clarke and Paul arrived about lunchtime to pick up the last of their gear and their two trailers full of equipment – there’ll be no more workmen traipsing dust, grass cuttings, mud, and grouting debris through the house! Oh, they’ll be back, socially, I hope, for a cup of coffee every now and then, but… I have my bathroom, Julian has his bathroom back, and we have our house and our lives back! No more having to be up and dressed by 7.30am – just in case Paul arrived on time! No more having to be here because something’s being delivered, or an electrician is going to be arriving, or whatever – the sense of freedom is almost palpable! So, I still can’t use the shower until Thursday – but I’m just so happy all the damn inconvenience and frustration is over, that I don’t really care! 🙂 “Alone at last!”, as they say in the classics!
We nearly had a bit of a panic crisis this afternoon – Julian was going to get the Christmas Tree up, but we couldn’t find it! We looked everywhere! In cupboards, under the bed, in the shed… but… no tree! And it would have been fairly easy to spot, too, because although it’s only a smallish tree, it would have appeared larger, because last Christmas we didn’t undress and dismantle the tree as we normally do, we just left it as it was, with all its baubles and lights and ornaments still on it, and “triple bagged it” in (clean) giant rubbish bags! We went through all the places where we might have put such a shaped parcel wrapped up in rubbish bags, to no avail. Finally, having dragged out Julian the whereabouts of the last place he saw it, it was established that it had been on top of the bookcases in the spare room at Doncaster. Said bookcases had been carted off to storage when we moved (FYI: both of the bookcases are for sale, too, if anyone needs some really beautifully custom-built tall bookcases! email me if you’re interested!) so I suggested that maybe the Christmas Tree went with them? Julian disagreed, but decided to go and have a look anyway, because “when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”. He called me from the storage place – he had the Christmas Tree! 🙂 He’s de-bagged it – I haven’t been to have a look at it yet – but he says it seems to have survived all the jostling around of being first bagged up, and then carted holus-bolus off to storage! And, miracle of miracles, it does fit on top of the camphor-wood chest! 🙂
Before lunch we made out an absolutely massive shopping list, of everything we still had to get for Friday, and the Boxing Day weekend, from mousewash for the bathroom, to gravy to go with the roast Turkey breast for Christmas Dinner (sorry, lunch!) We both wanted to get as much done as possible today, to leave tomorrow free for more important things, like getting stocking fillers for everyone, and some ‘must-have’ mince pies… this year from Ferguson Plarre (it’s currently replaced Phillippa’s as my favourite “shop du jour”) to leave out for Father Christmas, along with a glass of milk 🙂 I have to have my next Warfarin blood test done, and I have a bit of “personal” shopping to do for Mother Christmas 😉 I’d like (“like” being the operative word!) …I’d like to leave somewhere between 9.30 – 10am, and get it all done early, but knowing us, which I’m afraid I do, we’ll be chock-a-block full of good intentions, but probably end up not leaving the house until around 1.30pm or so! 
I still haven’t “broken in” my new shoes, either. Brian (my shoemaker) told me that because they’re not allowed to use all the strong chemicals on leather that they used to, in order to soften up shoe leather, etc., they tell customers to wear their new shoes for a couple of hours each day, usually while they’re sitting watching television, as the body heat from your feet slowly softens up the leather, and helps “mould” the shoes to your feet… but I keep forgetting to If I remember tonight after dinner, I’ll put them on then, however I think I’d better go out armed with a very large packet of band-aids tomorrow, as I already know that the back of the shoes rub very painfully and badly against the back of my ankle – on both feet – and the top velcro strap rubs just as badly against the top of my second-last toe! I know this won’t happen once the shoes are “broken in”, but in the meantime… watch out band-aid makers! Winter is on the loose, with “pinching” shoes! 😉
Food: we didn’t get our usual half a banana on our cereal this morning – we’d completely run out of them (so Julian got some more this afternoon) and we had to have our cereal “naked”! 😮 For lunch today, I had another of those delicious home-made wraps, with fresh flat-bread, some sliced cold chicken left over from last night’s dinner, sliced tomato, and lovely plain Greek yoghurt – those wraps really are delicious, but terribly, terribly messy to eat! You end up with yoghurt covered hands, and slurping up shards of yoghurt covered tomato from your plate with your tongue! 🙂 Fun, and delicious! 😉 Tonight for dinner we’re having sausages (the good ones with proper skins!) with some sort of potato – chips or boiled, cos I doubt that they’ll be mashed – plus beans, and our usual seasoned half a tomato. Alas, there’s no more pudding for dessert, but I do believe that there’s one more shard each of the lovely Siena Cake that Mitta brought down from Sydney – and which has made me all nostalgic, and determined to find some really-truly Panforte!
Weigh-in this morning. Hmm… Apparently a piece of delicious, if somewhat stodgy, pudding, even without light cream, acts in exactly the same way as an equally delicious, lethally large and rather thick, brownie! Well, almost the same, anyway – because I went up a point – again! I went from 64.3kg to 64.4kg. Ah well, Christmas is a-comin’, and I’ll probably go up a whole lot more than that before the New Year is upon us, what with Panettone for Breakfast, nibblies before luncheon, and a celebratory chocolate after dinner (not to mention all the nice stuff for dinner!) But, “say la vee”, as the French are wont to say – I shall keep exercising all through the festivities, and I’ll do my very best not to over-indulge – and as a last resort, I can always go back on the Optifast diet for a month, if I have to! 🙂
So that’s about where we’re at – I played a bit of WoW this morning, and got my little Blood Elf Hunter, Dulcìnea, up to level 14, so I’ve taken her off to the Northern Barrens to try to tame Dishu for a Pet! I’ll let you know how she goes tomorrow – I’ve got another stupid pig as a temporary Pet, so I hope this one doesn’t behave like the last one did, and get me killed! I still have to wrap up Julian’s present, which I’ll do as soon as I know that he’s going to be busy up in the Office for at least an hour or so – tomorrow we have the stocking fillers and other last minute bits to get – and we also have to go to Bunny’s, to get a new non-slip mat for my new slippery-tiled shower, because just as soon as I’m allowed to use my lovely new shower – on Thursday – I’m going to have a nice, long, comfortable shower, and wash my hair! I know I keep on saying this, but… I just can’t wait to get in that shower and wash my hair! 🙂 Anyway, that’s about it again from me for tonight – but do look in again tomorrow night, and see if my weight has gone up yet again – which will probably spell “doom” to my second stint in the 64kg zone – and if we managed to get everything we needed to while we were out shopping – and although the blog might end up being a little late, there’ll be lots to tell you all! Until then, please bee as good as you can – only for another couple of nights! 😉 always remember that in optimism there is magic – in pessimism there is nothing – and don’t forget to look after yourselves, to drive carefully, and to keep warm – or cool – depending on our strange Melbourne weather – but above all, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂
My Word! 